1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an actuator which is used in an inkjet recording head which carries out printing on a recording medium by ejecting ink drops from nozzles, or the like, and to a method of manufacturing the actuator, a liquid droplet ejecting head using the actuator, and a liquid droplet ejecting device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, various types of displacement controlling elements are being used as actuators. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2004-247703 discloses a piezoelectric/electrostrictive device in which piezoelectric/electrostrictive bodies 4 which are shaped as rectangular plates stand erect on a ceramic substrate 2, and pairs of electrodes 18, 19 are formed on the both surfaces thereof. In this piezoelectric/electrostrictive device disclosed in JP-A No. 2004-247703, in order to make the amount of displacement large, the piezoelectric/electrostrictive bodies 4 stand erect such that the longitudinal directions thereof are orthogonal to the ceramic substrate 2. However, because the individual piezoelectric/electrostrictive bodies 4 are plate-shaped, there is the problem that they fall over easily and are unstable.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent No. 2850762 discloses a piezoelectric element in which a groove 111 is provided in a rectangular parallelepiped piezoelectric material 109, a plurality of intermediate electrodes 117 are formed at an intermediate portion in the heightwise direction of the piezoelectric material 109, and a common electrode is formed in the groove 111. Because the piezoelectric material 109 disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2850762 is parallelepiped, the stability thereof is better than that of a plate-shaped material. However, because the plurality of intermediate electrodes 117 are formed at the intermediate portion in the heightwise direction of the parallelepiped member, it is difficult to pull the piezoelectric material 109 out.